


Cosmic Love

by StilesBastille24



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes-centric, Established Relationship, Introspection, M/M, POV-Bucky Barnes, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-15 05:21:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4594380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StilesBastille24/pseuds/StilesBastille24
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha had asked Bucky when he fell in love with Steve. He’d looked at her funny because he didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t ever not been in love with Steve.</p><p>She’d asked if that had been hard, living when they had. He hadn’t understood that either. She said she meant, wanting to be with Steve and not being able to. He said he had always been with Steve, that wasn’t a problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cosmic Love

**Author's Note:**

> I just think Bucky is awesome and that he would be hella resilient to everything that life has thrown at him and this just sort of tumbled out of those beliefs.
> 
> /The title is in reference to the Florence & the Machine song since it's a song I associate with Bucky for whatever reason.

Sometimes Bucky just needs to get away from everyone. Find a space that he can claim as his own and blot out all the noises and commotion that have surrounded him since he came out of the Hydra induced fog that was his life up until a few months ago. Sometimes Bucky seeks solace on the roof of the apartment building. 

Everyone seems to think that Bucky should be pals with the other Avengers. Something about them all being a bunch of misfits. Something about broken pasts. Something about various disabilities. Something about bullcrap. Bucky doesn’t exactly give a shit. 

Bucky doesn’t get these people. The S.H.E.I.L.D. operatives walk around, hands covering their mouths, whispering about how it’s such a great shame that Captain America’s best friend doesn’t get on with the Avengers. Have they even seen Steve interact with the other Avengers?

There are not some great binding ties that unite Steve with the lovable Avengers misfits, or whatever the operatives tell themselves. Steve currently has three friends. Bucky, Sam, and Natasha. Only one of those three plays any role in the Avengers. 

So no, Bucky doesn’t exactly lose sleep at night over his lack of buddy bonding with the Avengers. He loses sleep over what the fuck he is even doing in this century. Over why Steve is in this century. Over what this century even is. 

“Buck?” Steve asks, his boots crunching over the gravel lining the roof. 

Bucky tilts his head to the side to show he’s listening, but doesn’t move from his seat at the edge of roof, black jeans caught on the brick ledge, black boot heels butting up against the side of the building. Overhead, the moon is too bright, illuminating the city like it’s mid-morning, not ten minutes to eleven. 

Orange and warm yellow light swamps the city below, horns honk, tires squeal, and if Bucky closes his eyes, he could almost pretend it was 1940 not 2015. Almost, except the air smells different, the horns are harsher, and the tires sharper. 

Steve drops down beside him, hands going to dangle between his spread knees. “It’s a lot to take in,” Steve says, as if continuing a conversation they were having. They weren’t, Bucky hasn’t lost time since the first two months after Alexander Pierce was murdered. 

“What are we doing here, Steve?” Bucky asks, like he has every night Steve has followed him up to the roof. 

Steve sighs, his broad shoulders heaving with the action as if a weight truly is resting on them. “I don’t know, Bucky. Just glad we’re here together.”

Bucky smirks, because Steve has always been a sap like that. Even when they were kids, tumbling down alleyways together with scraped knees and dirt on their cheeks. “I’d rather be back then with you instead.”

Steve jostles his shoulder into Bucky’s. “Dr. Sellar would say that was a morbid thought, jerk.”

“Right.” Bucky props his palms up against the roof, gravel digging into the skin of his right hand and grinding against the metal of his left. “Don’t want to upset the poor Doc, he’s so earnest and all.” 

Steve’s hand seeks out Bucky’s metal one, warm fingers overlying intricate panels that whirl quietly in the night air. Bucky’s arm is a great piece of machinery, can do anything a real arm could do, with sensors that make the hand able to touch and feel just like a hand should. Wouldn’t be much good otherwise, if the assassin couldn’t use his greatest weapon with the greatest efficiency. 

It’s a great sore spot for the Doc. Sellar is beyond convinced that Bucky’s got latent trauma related to his arm. That he’s repressing his hatred and disgust of his arm, or some quack shit like that. Bucky’s tried to explain, if Hydra hadn’t attached the arm, Bucky wouldn’t have an arm at all. He’s not all that broken up about it. He likes having two arms. 

And it wasn’t like the arm was the first time he’d been experimented on. He still had trauma from being captured by Hydra the first time. Had trauma from his best friend rescuing him and looking nothing like the best friend he’d left at home. Had trauma from falling off a goddamn train to his death. But the arm? Well, those were muscles he’d never have to work out to keep looking in their best condition. 

Maybe that’s why the Doc is all broke up about Bucky’s arm. It had taken about a week for Bucky to really accept Steve Rogers, the Captain America edition all the way back in the 1940s. It’d been a little rough at first. The guy was his best friend, had been since he could remember, then suddenly he was an entirely different looking person. That took some adjusting to. 

Bucky had expected some reciprocal feelings on Steve’s part about Bucky’s arm. He’d been dead wrong. Steve hadn’t cared two licks about the arm. He’d practically suffocated Bucky with the hug he threw around him the first time Bucky really remembered who he was and what was going on around him. Bucky thinks Steve would have accepted Bucky if his head was attached to a dog’s body. That’s just who Steve is. 

So no, Bucky doesn’t harbor any trauma about his arm the same way Steve doesn’t harbor any trauma about his super soldier presto-chango act. They’re resilient like that. 

Steve’s hand slips steadily down Bucky’s metal arm until Bucky flips his hand over to interlock their fingers. If Steve’s inching closer until their thighs press together tells Bucky anything, it’s that handholding had been Rogers goal all along. Bucky smirks again, free hand reaching up to shove his hair out of his eyes. 

“Remember when we saw The Wizard of Oz?” Bucky asks, eyes squinting down at the overflow of bright lights pouring out of windows and off of neon signs. 

“Yeah, and you wouldn’t shut up about Judy Garland for two whole weeks?” Steve ribs, smile evident in his tone. 

“The dame was in color,” Bucky emphasizes. “With those ruby shoes and her ruby lips.”

Steve laughs and Bucky glances at him to see the corners of his eyes crease the way they always have. Leaning close, Bucky brushes a kiss over those creases, the ones that will eventually work their way into wrinkles, if either of them live that long, that is. Or if they age at all. It’s a bit unclear what’s been modified in their genetic make-up at this point. 

Steve hushes at the kiss, which wasn’t exactly what Bucky was going for, but when he turns his head so that their lips meet instead, Bucky’s okay with that plan of action too. The kiss breaks as Steve rests his forehead against Bucky’s, eyes locking together, noses bumping together. 

“I’m glad I’m here with you, Buck,” Steve breathes into the scant space between them. 

“Yeah, I know you are, punk,” Bucky affirms. 

Steve gets anxious like that a lot now. Or maybe he always had and Bucky just didn’t notice. He doesn’t know what it was like for Steve after Bucky took off for the army. Maybe Steve spent those nights rolling over to look at the empty bed next to his, small hand reaching out to touch the cold mattress and remember that his best friend wasn’t there and might not ever be there again. 

Bucky had never asked. Didn’t seem to matter once Steve was back with him, hundreds of miles away from their lives and empty beds in Brooklyn. And that was something else people didn’t seem to get. They looked at Steve, the hero, the golden boy, Captain America, and felt so terribly sorry that his best friend had ended up a murderer. It must have been so hard for Steve, he must have had to overcome so much to forgive Bucky. 

Except it wasn’t like that. Bucky had always had Steve’s back. Captain America always had to do the right thing, had to be the face of the war, the hero in the spotlight. Heroes couldn’t get their hands dirty, or they wouldn’t be heroes any more, they’d be just like everybody else, fallen from their lofty pedestals. 

But Bucky? Bucky could do all of those things. He could take out the people Steve couldn’t, he could kill without remorse not because it was the right thing to do, but because it was the thing that had to be done. Steve had no glamorized illusions of Bucky. Bucky didn’t become a murderer because of Hydra, he’d been a murderer since World War Two when boys were made into men with blood on their hands and grit on their souls. 

Bucky’s life with Hydra didn’t paint his dreams red. It was some half remembered dream at its clearest. He remembered the routine of things, knowing that the words ‘wipe clean’ meant the chair and unbearable pain, knowing how to be the most dangerous person in the room without ever being noticed, knowing how to kill because that was what you were told to do. 

Falling from the train, watching Steve hack up blood from a bad bout of pneumonia, attending his ma’s funeral, those things turned his dreams black and monstrous. Except Steve was there like he’d always been to pull him back from the brink, to wrap his arms around Bucky’s shoulders and whisper that the things we dream can’t touch us in the light of day. 

So now he whispers to Steve, “I’m right here with you, pal. Not going anywhere.”

Steve drags in a breath, his eyelashes fluttering against Bucky’s cheeks. “They leveled the complex we used to live in. Tried to find it after they woke me, thought I could -” he cuts off, shakes his head minutely. “Was trying to get home.”

“Was a shithole anyway, Rogers,” Bucky teases to offset his best friend’s black mood. 

Steve huffs a laugh. “Yeah, but it was our shithole.”

Bucky quirks a brow. “A shithole is a shithole. I’d have burned the place down if I’d thought we could of afforded some place better.”

“Bucky,” Steve chastises and Bucky smiles, this is familiar territory. “Other people lived there, you’d have burned down their home?”

“Yep,” Bucky says, popping the ‘p.’ “Then chivvied them all off to our upgraded shithole of a complex like the gentleman my mama raised.”

Steve shoves at Bucky’s shoulder, breaking their intimacy and cool air swoops into to fill the space. “You ain’t ever been a gentleman, Bucky Barnes.”

Bucky clasps a dramatic hand to his chest. “You wound me, Rogers. Truly. Thought you were my best pal and all.”

“I am,” Steve confirms with a nod and serious turn of his mouth. “That’s why I call you on all your bullshit. Best pal’s duty and all.”

A brief laugh breaks free and Buck tugs Steve close again by their interlocked hands, smacking a kiss to his lips. “Gee thanks, doll, I’d be lost without you.”

“And don’t you forget it,” Steve smiles, eyes twinkling brighter than the moon above them. 

“You wanna run away with me, punk?” Bucky asks. 

“Where’d we go?” 

Bucky shrugs. “Could go anywhere. Tasha tells me the more podunk towns of America haven’t turned into the modernized chaos that New York and DC are. Could forget ourselves for a while, some place where the receptions not good and the internet is still something called dial up?”

“What would we do?” Steve asks. 

“You could draw for the funnies, like you wanted to before you got all high and mighty about war and tights.” Bucky plucks at Steve’s skin tight t-shirt. 

Steve swats him away, pinching the tight material of Bucky’s jeans to point out the hypocrisy. “What about you? What would you do, Bucky?”

“Dunno. Could work mechanics. This arm’s better than any jack, I can tell you that.” He tightens his hold on Steve’s hand. 

“Would we get a house?”

“With a white picket fence if you want.”

“And a dog?”

“Now that you’re not allergic, we could get a whole dozen if you wanted. One in every shape and size.” Bucky turns so that his knee is pressing into Steve’s and he can see his friend’s face more clearly. 

Steve is looking at the city below them, his eyebrows straight lines that mean he’s thinking hard. Bucky lifts his hand and thumbs across them, trying to soothe out the tension. “We’ve got a responsibility here, Bucky.”

“And I’m not talking about abandoning it, Steve, just saying, we can be responsible somewhere else. Stark’s got jets that could fly us here faster than we could take a subway to the Tower. Don’t need us here to do our duty.”

Steve mulls this over, thumb rubbing smooth circles into the cool metal of Bucky’s palm. It feels nice, soothing, for all that it’s Steve’s nervous tick. 

People used to think Steve didn’t like touching people, cuz he was so small they figured he was afraid of getting hurt. That wasn’t it though. Steve was touched starved if anything, but he didn’t want casual touches, he wanted ones that meant something and that wasn’t something you got on dates with dames just looking for a good dancing partner. 

He was never like that with Bucky though. They’d just always fallen into sync. Everything between them had meaning. Dr. Sellar said they were co-dependent. Steve called him an idiot. Bucky called him an asshat, a word he’d picked up from Sam. Either way, Sellar didn’t know a damn thing about them and couldn’t begin to imagine all the fine threads that held Bucky and Steve together. 

Tasha had asked Bucky when he fell in love with Steve. He’d looked at her funny because he didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t ever not been in love with Steve. It was one of the fundamental pillars of his life. Bucky Barnes loved Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers loved Bucky Barnes. Nothing more, nothing less. 

She’d asked if that had been hard, living when they had. He hadn’t understood that either. She said she meant, wanting to be with Steve and not being able to. He said he had always been with Steve, that wasn’t a problem. She’d rolled her eyes and arched a menacing eyebrow. 

“Romantically,” she’d said, lips forming the words sensually. 

Bucky had blinked. “It just wasn’t like that,” he’d said. 

“But you had to think about it,” she pressed.

Bucky frowned, a crease sinking between his eyebrows. “I didn’t. Don’t think Steve did either. We didn’t - it just wasn’t - I wasn’t jealous of Peggy or anything if that’s what you mean. I loved him, wanted him to be happy, Peggy made him happy.”

“But she got to kiss him and you didn’t,” Natasha said, tilting her head to the side as she tried to analyze his response. 

“Didn’t cross my mind as a problem,” Bucky shrugged. “Her kissing Steve didn’t mean Steve loved me any less. He loved her the way you love a dame and he loved me the way you love . . .” Bucky rubbed his fingers against his temple, trying to spell out something that just seemed so obvious to him. 

Tasha waited patiently, her eyes running over his every feature, trying to see through him. Bucky frowned, metal fingers pressing against his chest, above his heart. “I loved him the way you love the other half of your soul and he loved me the same. Was nothing to be jealous of between him and Peggy or anyone else for that matter.”

She squinted, clearly not understanding. “And now? What changed now?”

Bucky looked past her, out the floor to ceiling window of her apartment, out over the city that was bustling below. He thought of walking down the street with Steve, a baseball cap pulled low over his face, heart racing uncertainly in his chest, Steve speaking steadily about some inconsequential story from their past. 

Then he’d seen them. A couple across the street. Two men, smiling at one another. One short, like Steve had been, the other tall. The little guy grabbed ahold of the other guy’s tie and pulled him down to his height. Then he’d laid one on him. In the middle of broad daylight, with millions of people walking around them, those two men kissed and didn’t have a care in the world. Nobody stopped, nobody stared, nobody cared. 

_Oh,_ Bucky had thought. He stopped so suddenly Steve tripped a step in front of him then whirled around, worry etched across his face. 

“You okay, Buck?”

And Bucky had smiled. “Yeah, yeah, I’m okay, Stevie.” Then he’d cupped his hands around his best friends face and kissed him in broad daylight in New York city and it was the single greatest moment of his entire life. Especially when Steve kissed him back, just as inexpertly as Bucky had always imagined he would kiss.

“I love you, punk,” Bucky had said when they broke apart, not heartfelt or anything, just a statement of fact. 

Steve had smiled, corners of his eyes crinkling. “I love you too, Buck. Always have.”

And that was that. Steve was his boyfriend now, but he was his best friend just like he always had been and Bucky loved him just like he always had. 

“Thor lived in New Mexico once,” Steve says slowly, tugging Bucky’s arm up so it wraps around his shoulders and he can more comfortably lean into Bucky’s side. 

Bucky rolls his eyes. “We aren’t asking Thor for recommendations. He’s an alien. You don’t ask aliens for vacation destinations, Steve. They’re aliens.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s speciesist,” Steve ponders, brows crinkling up as he thinks on it. 

Bucky groans. “Don’t care. We’re not asking him.”

“Hawkeye was there too.”

“Fine. We can ask Clint. But he’s going to turn it into some innuendo that old geezers like you and I just won’t get, then you’ll get all embarrassed and Stark will make fun of you and you’ll get pissed and -”

“Yeah,” Steve grumps, slapping a hand over Bucky’s mouth, “I get the picture, pal, thanks.”

Bucky kisses Steve’s broad palm, grinning. “Just looking out for you, Stevie. I know how much you hate bullies.”

“Uh-huh. Not sure anyone bullies me as much as you, jerk.”

Bucky drops his arm to Steve’s waist and pulls him securely against his chest. “That’s what best friends do, Steve. They rib you so bad so that other guy’s ribbing won’t hurt you any.”

“Questionable techniques, I’m sure Dr. Sellar wouldn’t approve.”

“Screw that guy,” Bucky yells out over the city. Steve breaks up laughing, burying his face in Bucky’s chest to muffle the sound. 

And it’s fine, it’s good, it’s great even. Bucky doesn’t care what anybody else thinks about him, he doesn’t care if the rest of the world always remembers him as damn teddy bear. The only person he has ever cared about really knowing him, is sitting right beside him, and Steve Rogers has always known who Bucky Barnes is. Better yet, Steve Rogers has always loved Bucky for exactly who he is and Bucky has always loved him right back.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://www.blueeyeschina.tumblr.com)


End file.
